Becoming
by Answer
Summary: "Beauty," you said, gently. "Will you marry me?" -BatB-


I watch the sunset from my bedroom window – though it is not really _my _bedroom at all. Nothing here is mine – even I am not technically my own, not after my father sold me to you to save his own skin.

No, now I am unkind. I understand. I accept. I forgive.

I am watching the sun fade behind the trees on the horizon. There's a line of them, thick black silhouettes against the orange sky. Strange, how they look so solitary when there's a whole forest behind them. They're surrounded by others, yet they look so alone. Do I know that? Or do I simply feel it?

Although I know the forest is just beyond the castle gates, it seems to be oceans away from me. Oceans and oceans – the whole world is between me and my home.

It's so quiet here. You said that when I first arrived, on that first night when we had dinner together – that is, when I had dinner. You only watched me. I think you sensed that I was uncomfortable, that it was the very fact that you sat at the table and did nothing but watch me that unnerved me above everything else. You were so kind to me, so polite – yet, at the same time, I confess I did not know what to make of you. After all, you threatened to kill my father.

"_I hope…I hope you will find it in your heart to be happy here."_

Sometimes, it's as though you can read my mind, just by watching my face. As though you're used to watching, never speaking. You saw that you surprised me, then. I thought I was here to serve a death sentence, yet nothing seemed to matter more to you than my happiness. Except keeping me prisoner. On that first night, I believed, truly and with my whole heart, that I would never be happy again.

"It is very quiet in this castle, Beauty, and I must warn you that you may find it oppressive. You see, conversation requires other people. You will find no other people here. I am afraid that you – we – are alone. I am but a foolish Beast, Beauty, and I know that my conversation will give you no pleasure, but it has been too long since I have heard a human voice…" A pause. "Beauty…"

"Yes, sir?"

"Will you… speak to me?"

You know, don't you, about words, about the power they carry? On that first evening, I sensed it. If you are a foolish Beast, then I have nought but the intelligence I brought with me to this Earth. You know far more than I could ever learn. You know what no other being I have encountered has known. You know about people. You know about me.

You knew I was horrified, that night. You didn't know why.

Must you deprecate yourself at every turn?

You are Mistress here, Beauty.

Everything in this castle is yours alone.

_**Everything.**_

Everything?

_I would do nothing to cause you pain, Beauty._

Time passes here in the strangest way I have ever known. There are days when the days drag on slowly, endlessly, emptily until the evenings, when we meet again in the dining room and perform our strange ritual. I stand up when you enter the room, my food untouched, though I often find myself in waiting for your arrival. We take our seats at the same time. I had thought you were to be my master – at worst, my owner. After all, you bought me with my father's life – I could not have imagined what you wanted with me. But you seem determined that I am mistress here, that the castle and whatever powers govern us are mine to control. It is of no use – I will never bring myself to ask of you the one thing I want above all else. So, since you will not have authority in your own castle, and I will not have it when it is not mine, we shall be equals. We sit at the same time, and I talk.

I talk.

I talk as I would never have talked before, not at one of Father's dinner parties, not with my sisters, not at all. It is not becoming for a woman to talk, but since you ask it of me and have given me so much, I oblige you, though I confess that I enjoy it far more when you converse with me. There are some nights when I believe that I could deliver an entire sermon on the weather's being unusually fine for the time of year, and you would watch and absorb it as important information. Other nights, I forget the distance to my home, and the strangeness of the castle and the mysteries I cannot fathom, and I think only of you, as I laugh at something you have said to amuse me, and lean back in my chair to converse long after the dishes have disappeared. I am glad to keep company with you.

It is when time is spent in such a way that it seems to me to pass so much faster, and it is the thought of that, when the time comes when we must part company, that dispels my happiness. How horrible to live in a place where lonely minutes pass like hours, yet an hour spent in happiness may feel like mere seconds.

This evening, my happiness was brought to a different end. As the sun sinks from view, I think about what has passed tonight. We were discussing, of all things, literature. You cannot understand how delighted I was to find that we had tastes much in common with one another. We talked of old tales, of poetry, of comedies and tragedies. I have never talked so on such subjects, having never found so perfect a person to discuss them with. You seemed delighted to please me, and I was delighted to have discovered someone I could talk about my favourites with.

It was my fault that it happened, though I slowly realise now with a horrible guilt that you would never allow me to take the blame. I mentioned the Greek myths – I told you of my love for the tale of Eros and Psyche. I said it without thinking, but realised as soon as I had that I had made a mistake. I realised, thinking about it, what I had done. Psyche, the youngest of three sisters, sent to be sacrificed to a monster, and finding instead that she is mistress of a castle. There is no monster, only a lover she does not see. Eros, the god of love. I cannot read your expressions, but I saw you freeze. Your eyes became hollow and you looked away.

"Why…" Your voice echoed through the shadows of the dining hall, your voice sounding oddly choked. "Why do you like that one?"

I closed my eyes, cursing myself before I replied. "It's beautiful," I sighed, eventually, unable to prolong the silence. "It's so romantic."

You turned back to me, painfully slowly, your eyes piercing my head, as though you were looking directly at my thoughts. "Psyche…" you began, slowly, then stopped. After what seemed like an eternity, you tried again. "She falls in love with a man she cannot see."

"Yes," I replied, slowly, my eyes on the water swirling in the bottom of my goblet. I cannot bring myself to meet your gaze.

"Beauty," you said, my name escaping you like a sigh, and I felt all at once the full force of the emotions I was filled with. Loneliness, longing – and above all, a great and terrible sadness. But, for once in my selfish life, the emotions were not for myself. They were for you. Suddenly, I knew you could understand everything I felt, perhaps more than I could. You felt it, too, more deeply than ever. What was only a cut in my flesh must have been for you a great and numbing pain, a bloody scar that would never heal. Suddenly, I wanted to cry. "Beauty," you said, gently. "Will you marry me?"

Had I felt any other way, I might have made a joke of it. All alone in this castle, just the two of us – who would we find to perform the ceremony? Did you intend a magical wedding, with a clergyman shaped out of light to perform the service and fairies as our guests?

But this is no fantasy and no joke. Between us there is the cruel unbreakable barrier of reality. A sob rose in my throat, and I choked. It was then, and only then, that I saw you. When first we met, you were my captor. Whatever you may have believed – and, for all my limited skills in the field at which you seem to excel, I have learned to guess, at least, at some of your thoughts – nothing else about you mattered then. You kept me prisoner, you had threatened my father and now took from me the only other thing I held dear – my freedom. Adonis himself couldn't have appealed to me in that situation. But gradually it had changed. I saw you as a friend, now. I see you as a friend, still, but for the first time…

I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I wish it were some other way, but I can't change this. Tonight, for the first time, I see you as a Beast.

You watched me cry with a quiet concern. I could see you wanted to reach out, to comfort me, but you couldn't. That made it worse, the fact that I was sitting there, eyes brimming over, wiping my tears on the sleeve of my gown, and that, once again, you were watching. Somehow, I know that you've waited a long time to ask me that question. Somehow, I have done this to you, wounded you. I never would have wanted to hurt you. Whatever else you might be, you are more than worthy of my friendship, and I am not such a monster that I am capable of injury to a friend.

Even so, I watched your eyes – the only part of you I can understand – as I moved my hands away from my face and calmed my breathing, parting my lips to give my answer.

"N-no…" I stammered, wishing I could close my eyes but unable to break contact with yours. "Sir – Beast – I'm sorry. I can't…"

Can't what?

Love a monster as hideous as me…

It was your voice, but it did not come from you, it came from all around me.I wanted to cry out, to tell you…

To tell you what?

I didn't know. I closed my eyes and let the tears flow down my cheeks. By the time I opened them again, you had gone, and I was alone in the darkness and cold of an empty room.

I've been sitting at this window for more than an hour. Night set in long ago, and there is nothing for me but to go to bed and face the morning when it comes. But what if I have angered you? What if I have injured you as much as I begin to think I have injured myself? What if you do not come to me any more?

I cannot bear it. I cannot live without you. I cannot stand to live as you have done, to be alone.

I cannot stand for you to be alone, either.

There is movement below me. The courtyard is dimly illuminated by moonlight, and I see you, alone in the night. I have seen you before, out in the castle grounds after dark, but never like this. Tonight, you are more human than any man I have ever seen. Your hands – claws – are curled into fists, and you hold one to your head as though in pain or grief. I gasp. You turn and look up, but I am hidden by the curtains. I could light a candle, show myself, but I don't.

"A lover you cannot see," I whisper. "Goodnight, Beast."

There is a pause. You turn away, looking out into the darkness. Are you happy?

"Goodnight, Beauty."


End file.
